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I have mentioned several actors who portrayed Dan Dare in previous posts, but here is a list of all the professional productions in radio, audio CDs, stage and television, with all the actors who have played Dan and Digby. The very first production was a radio series which ran from 1951 until 1956 on Radio Luxembourg. This was a daily serial which featured Noel Johnson as Dan and John Sharp as Digby. Johnson had previously played Dick Barton for the BBC and this series of long serials, split into daily fifteen minute episodes, followed the structure of the 'Dick Barton' serials. The next adaptation was a stage play, produced in 1972 at the then new Half Moon Theatre in Whitechapel. Written by Michael Irving, it starred Alex Leppard as Dan and Terrence Dougherty as Digby. 

Although several attempts were made to produce a major live action TV series in the 1980s, with James Fox and later Gareth Hunt mooted to play Dan and Rodney Bewes signed to play Digby, a series was never made. Dan's first appearance on television was actually for a series of three humorous adverts on ITV for Mobil Motor Oil in 1987. These featured Niven Boyd as Dan and Jimmy Yule as Digby. The next version was a four part BBC radio serial based on Dan's original Venus story, produced in 1990. This featured Mick Ford as Dan and Donald Gee as Digby. Also in the 1990s, Colin Baker, who had played Doctor Who on television, produced a short experimental 'Dan Dare' audio with the company who would later become Big Finish Productions. Colin played Digby and David Banks played Dan. Unfortunately, this was not developed into a commercial release.  A short TV pilot episode was made by Zenith Productions in 1994, with Robert Bathurst as Dan and Geoffrey Hughes as Digby (see picture alongside), but it was not commissioned. The pilot was screened at several Comic conventions and can be viewed on You Tube. Dan finally did get on television in a 26 part computer animated series in 2001, in which Greg Ellis voiced Dan and Julian Holloway was a cockney Digby! Aargh!

Dan was back on stage for a musical version of his story in 2003, produced at the Customs House in South Shields. Scripted by Tom Kelly, with music by John Miles, Dan was played by Joe Caffrey and Digby by Gez Casey. In 2008, Orion released an audio dramatisation of the first Venus story as Dan Dare: Voyage to Venus Part One. This was an almost exact reading of Frank Hampson's text from EAGLE and featured Tom Goodman-Hill as Dan and Rupert Degas as Digby. Degas played several other parts as well. Unfortunately sales were not encouraging enough for the second part to be recorded. Finally B7 Media released a series of six audio CDs in 2016 and 2017, with Ed Stoppard as Dan and Geoff McGovern as Digby. These plays have subsequently been broadcast on BBC Radio Four Extra.   

Essentially all these adaptations have been based on the original version of 'Dan Dare' in the 1950s and 60s EAGLE, with some being closer to the original than others. The Half Moon Theatre play, the Radio Luxembourg serials, the 1990 BBC version, the Orion audio and the Zenith pilot stuck very closely to the original. The Mobil adverts echoed Frank Hampson's designs, but as deliberate comedies they sent the characters up, although they managed this affectionately and successfully. The 2003 musical was also humorous, but parodied 1950s space fiction in general and in doing so, often ridiculed 'Dan Dare' unfairly and incorrectly. The 2001 CGI version changed Dan's appearance and failed to capture his personality, In attempting to update him, it presented him as a slightly pompous and even irritating character.  Acknowledging and accommodating our greater knowledge of the planets of the solar system, the B7 audios were  obliged to make significant changes to the stories. However, this was consistent with Frank Hampson's original, for he set Dan's adventures on what was then known of the planets. While changes were also made to several characters, such as Digby and Professor Peabody, Ed Stoppard's Dan was recognisably the EAGLE hero and this series successfully captured the spirit of the original. 

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The 2002 C.G.I. Dan Dare TV series was heavily criticised by fans for changing Digby from a Wiganer to a cockney. Digby was voiced by the British actor Julian Holloway, son of London born Stanley Holloway, who famously performed the monologue The Lion and Albert and many other humorous narrative poems in a Lancashire accent. Julian himself could easily have portrayed Digby as a Lancastrian, having inherited his father’s talent for mimicking accents, but the misguided decision to relocate Digby came from the producers. Ironically, Greg Ellis, the actor who voiced Dan Dare in the series, actually comes from Wigan!

The new Eagle originally featured the adventures of Dan Dare’s great great grandson in its pages, but in a short flashback in 1983 it suggested that the original Dan had really been an R.A.F. pilot in the Second World War who travelled through a time warp to the 1990s. There seemed to be no point to this ‘revelation’ especially as it contradicted long established facts, but it was actually reported to tie in with the planned live action Dan Dare TV series, slated to star James Fox as Dan and Rodney Bewes as Digby. Bewes was a keen fan of Dan Dare and a member of the EAGLE Society. In his 1983 autobiography Comeback, James Fox commented on the role of Dan for which he had recently been cast, describing him as a Second World War fighter pilot who travels forward in time to become a space pilot.

Of course ATV's live action series was never made, but in a 2015 interview James Fox suggested that although he is now too old to play Dan, he could play Sir Hubert Guest instead! The aborted series was first mooted in the mid 1970s and in 1979, Gareth Hunt, fresh from his success in The New Avengers was reported to have been cast as Dan. Remarkably, in a poll conducted by 2000 A.D. comic, also in 1979, Gareth Hunt was the readers' choice to play their revisionist version of Dan Dare, as drawn by Dave Gibbons.  

In 1991 a short TV pilot was made by Zenith Productions in an effort to interest TV companies in a Dan Dare series. Robert Bathurst played Dan and Geoffrey Hughes played Digby. Like Rodney Bewes, Hughes was also a keen fan and in his role as Eddie Yeats in Coronation Street was once shown reading a copy of the 1980s EAGLE. Unfortunately a series was not picked up.   

 The only time a live action Dan was seen on TV was in 1987, when he and Digby, played by Niven Boyd and Jimmy Yule respectively were featured in three advertisements for Mobil Oil.